Name Service Switch

NIS+ works in conjunction with a separate facility called the Name Service
Switch. The Name Service Switch, sometimes referred to as “the Switch,”
enables Solaris-based workstations to obtain their information from more than
one network information service. They can get the information from local,
or /etc files, from NIS maps, from DNS zone files, or
from NIS+ tables. The Switch not only offers a choice of sources, but allows
a workstation to specify different sources for different types
of information. The name service is configured through the file /etc/nsswitch.conf.